Oil and natural gas are used in many parts of our society today. For example, oil is the basis for fueling a large portion of today's transportation, as well as being a component in many fields of product manufacture, e.g., plastics manufacturing, and natural gas can be used both as a heating source and as a source to meet other energy needs. As our society has consumed vast quantities of oil and natural gas over time, the more accessible supplies of these hydrocarbons have been diminished causing the search for more oil and natural gas to expand to more challenging environments. One such challenging environment is an undersea environment.
Currently, at some depths, it is possible to extract oil and gas from an undersea well. An overview of this process is shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 shows a seabed well 102 from which a stream of a mixture flows to a separator 104. This mixture can include oil, gas, mud, water and other materials flowing from the seabed well 102 which are physically mixed together. The separator 104 separates the mixture into various components, e.g., gas and other materials. The gas is then transferred to a compressor 106 which compresses the gas and sends the gas along to various facilities 108, e.g., a storage facility.
Many different types of separators 104 currently exist for use in separating out components of a stream. One example of a separator 104 is a centrifugal separator 104 as shown in FIG. 2. Initially, a gas/liquid stream 202 enters the centrifugal separator 104. The gas/liquid stream 202 moves past a swirl element 204 and into a separation chamber 206 which then leads to gas extraction 208. The result of this process is two separate streams, a liquid free gas stream 210 and a separated liquid stream 212. Other types of separators 104 include baffle separators, electrostatic coalescers and magnetic separators.
As previously described, the undersea environment is a challenging environment for obtaining oil and gas. Additionally, manufacturing equipment to safely and efficiently operate in a cost effective manner in such an environment will be an ongoing challenge. Accordingly, systems and methods for improving undersea oil operations are desirable.